


Eye On the Crayon Box

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [15]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Mr. Mom, Nanny Taako, Parent-Child Relationship, grown up Angus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-05-19 02:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19347670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Angus is 40 years old when his wife passes away, leaving him the single father of three small children.  Taako is 150 when he learns that being a housewife is a little bit harder than saving the universe.Children do not appreciate fine dining.  Kravitz does not appreciate Angus trying to bend the laws of life and death.  Taako just wants to sleep in for once, is that too much to ask?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Mr. Mom" by Lonestar.
> 
> I'm borrowing things from two other people for this: First off, Taako's house design is stolen from a_big_apple. Their fics are phenomenal and totally worth a look at (https://archiveofourown.org/works/16461695) and also their layout for Taako's house is pretty much ingenious. 
> 
> Additionally, Angus's wife's name (Silvia) is taken from this fic by anonymous_moose (https://archiveofourown.org/works/10645485 ). Also fantastic, also worth the read.
> 
> The children will be introduced properly in the fic, but sometimes it's nice to know these things ahead of time. Joey is named after Joaquin, and he is five years old. Fisher is three, and he is named after the baby voidfish, obviously. Maggie is a newborn, less than 6 months old, and since she was born after Magnus's death she was named after him. 
> 
> Magnus has died a few months prior to the start of this fic in his mid-seventies.

It was a rather unfortunate year that took two lives in the scope of a few months, while bringing a new life to be in that same time.  The goddesses of fate and death in turn work in mysterious ways, and those ways are best not to be questioned, or so it had been explained to Taako time and time again.  Taako had never faired well with being told not to question things, because life experience taught him that anytime questions were forbade, information was being hidden, and that this hidden information could be dangerous. 

 

Better to know exactly what you were working with, or so was the Elve’s opinion.  

 

It was fair to say that he had no idea what he was working with currently.  These were strange times with unprecedented circumstances, but wasn’t that just the game Istus liked to play with him?  His childhood, Lup’s transition, their time with the IPRE, the decade that came after it, and preventing the end of the world-- all of that was strange events with unprecedented circumstances.  No how-to manual. No wisdom. Just working hard, rolling with the punches, and trying his best again and again and again. 

 

All things considered, this shouldn’t have been some great struggle.  Taako had saved the world, after all. He had defeated the Hunger. He had done a lot of things.  

 

There ought be no reason for Angus on his doorstep to send him reeling.  No reason at all. 

 

The night of Angus’s arrival was set with light showers and a half-full moon at ten in the evening.  The cobblestone paths leading through the campus of Taako’s Amazing School of Magic were slick and primed for tripping.  The campus was lit by forever glowing lanterns that floated seemingly by magic, but actually through the work of magnets.  The classroom buildings were dark and silent, and the dormitory was calm and glowing with students who were up burning the midnight oil, or maybe just playing card games.  

 

A small cottage sat nestled in the corner of campus, surrounded entirely by larger buildings on one side, and by towering trees on the other.  The trees were looming and dark and the inky space between them twinkled with sprite lights. It reminded Taako of being fully surrounded by stars and space on the deck of the Starblaster.  

 

The cottage, though tiny from the outside, was sprawling inside.  Enter the front door and you’ll find yourself in a front hall, with space for shoes and coats but, strangely, no umbrella stand.  This hall will open to a sitting room and a dining room alike, both used for administrative meetings and official dinners, as Taako was opt to host, being the headmaster of a school and all.  Through the dining room and a set of dutch doors, one will find an immaculate kitchen that anyone without ample kitchen experience would fail to describe properly at all, so I will not. Off the sitting room you will enter the headmaster’s office, and through the kitchen you will find the livable portion of the cottage.  A grand master bathroom with a bathtub big enough for three or four, if that were ever to be desired, which probably wouldn’t come to pass. A sitting room with actually comfortable couches, a music player, and a set of bookcases with tomes for leisure rather than for academics. A hall through his portion will show you a number of bedrooms, one for each of the other birds and a couple of others, for Angus and Ren respectively, or whoever happened to be staying the night at any given time.  The cellar opened through the kitchen floor and held jars and canned goods and bottles of wine, as well as a few books that Kravitz and Barry  _ insisted _ be kept under chain, lock, key, inside a chest, and buried under a pallet of bricks.  

 

It was in everyone’s best interest that the chest was never investigated, and Taako was wise enough to realize this, even if the curiosity drove him absolutely wild at times. 

 

Taako found his thoughts drifting to that chest as he opened his front door late that night and saw the visitors before him.  Angus was no longer the little boy he had been, since humans had their tendencies to age quickly and without proper reason. Taako had known the child for only three decades, and the boy had already raced ahead of Taako in terms of physical maturity.  It was  _ ridiculous _ .  

 

He was surrounded by tiny versions of himself as well, a tiny worm of a being (“A  _ baby _ , Taako, don’t pretend you don’t know what a baby is, sir.”) swaddled tight in a blanket and nestled in a basket that hung from Angus’s elbow, and a second, slightly larger larvae clinging to his neck and settled against his hip.  A third little person, who bore Angus’s same curly dark hair, warm freckled skin, huge brown eyes, and soda bottle glasses peered out around Angus’s leg and clung to the back of his shirt with tiny fists. A suitcase was floating along behind them, kept aloft through a Bigby’s Hand that Angus hardly seemed to be attending to.  Taako had taught him well. 

 

There had been a time when an over-enthusiastic Angus would have launched himself full-speed at Taako, back when he was still small enough for Taako to stagger and catch him without toppling over completely.  These days Taako could barely get his arms around those broad shoulders, though he had no problem catching the child that beamed and launched himself forward, with a gleeful cheer of “Uncle Taako!” 

 

Joey, named for Joaquin Terrero, savior of the universe, was five years old and already nearly four feet tall.  He could write his letters and was damn close to reading, according to Angus’s letters. He hardly weighed a thing as Taako caught him and hefted him up, hugging him tightly before blowing a spell slot to levitate the boy in the air, making him tumble and bat at the walls, and giggle. 

 

There was a tired smile on Angus’s face watching this, and the boychik looked like an absolute trainwreck.  A younger, less tactful Taako would have pointed this out to him, but Taako was one hundred fifty now, and he’d learned a thing or two through the years.  One of those things being “don’t criticize someone’s appearance while they’re morning the death of their wife.” He tried gently teasing a teary eyed Magnus once and got socked so hard his fingers were numb for an hour and a half.  

 

Instead of saying anything, Taako made mental notes for himself.  His shoes were muddy, probably soaked through from the rain, as were the bottoms of his pant legs.  His pants were wrinkled, as if they’d been worn a few times after being dug back out of the laundry.  His shirt was untucked and unbuttoned at the top, sleeves rolled up, tie missing, and the sweater he wore over it had a questionable stain on the shoulder.  His hair was unkempt, his face sagged, and the skin under his eyes was dark and bruised. Chapped lips. Filthy glasses.  

 

Hachi machi. 

 

“Thanks for taking us,” he said, and Taako made quick work of setting Joey on solid ground again, commandeering the floating suitcase, and taking the baby basket from Angus’s arms. 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, sending the suitcase down the hall and leading the way.  “You can come invade my house whenever you want to, you know this.” 

 

Angus ought to have known this, and Taako certainly hoped he did.  Angus had spent his childhood bouncing between the moon, school, Raven’s Roost, and here, and Taako had  _ always _ had a bedroom reserved for him.  He’d never been one for openly sharing how he felt about things, though, and for that reason exactly he desperately wished that Kravitz was home tonight.  Kravitz was great at this stuff, charming and suave and ready for everything. Taako needed that.  _ Angus _ needed that.  

 

Ah well, they’d have to make do. 

 

It was quick work to get the children settled for bed, setting the basket up in Angus’s room and Joey in Magnus’s, which had the largest and coziest bed.  They meant to put Fisher there as well, but the three year old was unwilling to relinquish his hold on Angus’s sweater, and Angus didn’t have the heart or the energy to do anything about it.   Joey, exhausted from the three long days they’d had and the journey there, went out like a light. The baby continued to sleep silently. Angus went to the kitchen and poured himself a drink, and he and Taako both collapsed onto the couch. 

 

“Can’t believe you turn up around here in the middle of the night,” he teased, trying to lighten the atmosphere.  “It’s like you have no manners, who  _ raised  _ you?” 

 

“A bunch of strangers on the moon.”  

 

Sometimes Taako very sorely resented Angus and Silvia’s name choices for the children.  The larvae themselves, of course, he absolutely adored, but there was something tender and painful about Angus, sitting in Taako’s living room looking so grown up and Magnus shaped, holding Fisher in his arms and humming to him quietly.  Took Taako back, to the Starblaster, to their youth, to seeing Magnus young and happy and nineteen years old. 

 

When Magnus passed earlier that year, only a week before Angus’s youngest was born, he and Silvia decided to name her Maggie, and wasn’t that just a kick to the teeth.  What a lovely sentiment. What a damn honor. Taako couldn’t say the name without making his eyes sting, and he’d really have to learn to get over that before the kid started talking.  That was soon, probably. Humans grew up so damn quickly. 

 

“You okay?” Angus asked, voice breaking Taako from his reverie.  

 

“Taako is always okay, boychik,” Taako said, taking a deep breath and a swig of the drink in Angus’s hand.  It burned going down-- that was some Merle grade shit-- and he handed it back with a sputter while Angus snickered next to him.  He smacked Angus on the arm. Angus elbowed him back with a smile. 

 

They woke up on the couch in the morning.  Taako had a crick in his neck from sleeping sitting up, with his arm across the back of the sofa and his head tipped back.  Angus had shifted in his sleep and settled heavy under Taako’s arm, pressed against his side and propped up against him, with Fisher asleep on his chest.  Taako woke up with a grown and a pop, opened his eyes, and found two big eyes staring at him. 

 

“Oh hello,” he said, and Joey giggled, clambering off his lap and tugging at Taako’s hand. 

 

“Breakfast,” he demanded, and Taako let himself get pulled to his feet and into the kitchen, rolling his neck and pulling his hair back off his face as he went.  “I made cereal, look,” Joey told him, and sure enough there were uncooked oats floating in a bowl of milk on the counter, as well as oats and milk spilled over basically every other counter surface that Joey could reach, and a bit on the floor. 

 

“Huh…” Taako said, surveying the room.  Joey picked an oat off the counter and ate it, raw. 

 

“I kinda mucked it up,” he confessed, and Taako nodded slightly.  He blinked a few times. 

 

“Wanna learn how to make oatmeal?” he asked, and Joey beamed up at him.  

 

“Yeah!” he cheered, and Taako nodded. 

 

He stepped carefully over the mess on the floor and cast prestidigitation with the flick of a wrist to move the mess out of the way.  “Okay,” he agreed, “But if we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do it  _ fancy _ .” 

  
  


\---------

  
  


Angus had been a very easy child to take care of.  At ten years old he’d been fairly self-reliant, good at entertaining himself, and good at asking for what he wanted or needed.  He’d been happy enough to read, do schoolwork, and go out investigating mysteries, and the only real trouble they ever ran into involved Angus getting tangled up in those mysteries and being too damn independent to ask for help when he needed it. 

 

They’d worked that out easily enough, though.  Even the teenage bullshit Angus put them through paled in comparison to anything the Twins, Magnus, shit, even Lucretia had gotten up to in their adolescence.  That just made Taako even more angry that Angus’s parents had mistreated him. Kids don’t deserve that, no matter what, but Angus was a fucking  _ golden child _ . 

 

Taako found himself missing those days, and slightly wishing Angus had been a little bit  _ younger _ when they’d met, just so Taako could have gotten some proper practice. 

 

It was nine in the morning, and Taako was having the longest day of his life. 

 

The past two days had been a breeze.  Angus and Taako had lounged around the house, looked after the kids, and carefully not talked about the death or the funeral or anything involved with it.  Three tiny Angos with two adults to supervise was a walk in the damn park, so much so that when Angus mentioned leaving to help the investigation, Taako had assured him that he could handle it.  Nothing to worry about, natch. 

 

Kravitz had come home that third night bearing news.  He told Taako, behind closed doors, that Angus’s wife had passed but had failed to check into the astral plane.  Silvia’s name was in Kravitz’s book, a soul to track down and escort over, which could have meant nothing-- she could have just gotten lost-- but it could have been very bad news. 

 

Angus, being the way that he was, hadn’t been able to contain himself where he’d been eavesdropping outside their bedroom door.  Kravitz said he was reporting to work to start searching for her, to bring her home to the sea of souls, and storm clouds had gathered in Angus’s eyes as he began speaking about leading an investigation. 

 

“She wasn’t just killed in the line of duty if she’s still haunting the material realm,” he’d argued.  “She was  _ murdered _ !  If she’s still out there, maybe we can get her back!” 

 

Taako had dismissed himself from that conversation instead of listening to it play out.  He checked on the children, who were snoozing soundly, and then went to his office to call Ren on his stone of farspeech.  It was late, but she rarely went to bed early. If this was going the way Taako suspected, he’d need to be out of the office for a few days.  

 

Kravitz would run off to work, to find Silvia and escort her to the astral plane.  Angus would run off and investigate her murder, find the culprit and bring them to justice.  Probably not conduct any sort of necromancy, if Kravitz had any say in the matter. But  _ someone _ had to take care of the children, and hell, Taako wouldn’t mind a few days off from his duties at school.  Babysitting? He had that in the bag, natch. 

 

He was wrong. 

 

Joey and Fisher woke up him at six in the morning, demanding breakfast and juice and attention.  They didn’t want oatmeal, and they decided after it was already made that they thought eggs were  _ gross _ .  Eventually they settled on pancakes, and Taako was tired and distracted enough while he made them that he managed to burn his thumb on the pan. 

 

The baby was still young enough to eat formula, which Taako-- world renowned chef as he was-- had a hell of a time figuring out.  The baby also cried  _ frequently _ , for food, for changing, because it was too loud or too quiet, because it was bored.  Taako ended up taking her out of the basket and holding her, hauling her everywhere he went and levitating her in the air when he needed his hands for other things. 

 

Fisher managed to get pancake syrup in his hair, and on his clothes, and covering both arms, legs, and his face.  Taako didn’t understand how it had happened. Joey found that absolutely hilarious and cackled maniacally over it, making Fisher cry, and getting them both to calm down and stop had taken an amount of patience Taako didn’t know he possessed.  

 

Bathtime was an entire affair, which got more water on Taako and the bathroom floor than on Fisher, and there was a bout of crying because Fisher was scared of getting soap in his eyes, which Taako figured out after several minutes of panic.  He kept Maggie in her basket on the bathroom counter while he got Fisher taken care of, sure that Joey-- who could hold full conversations and read and was learning to cook-- could entertain himself and keep himself out of trouble for a while.  

 

Taako had sorely mistaken the maturity of human five year olds. 

 

He stood in the hallway, holding Maggie’s basket in one arm and a towel wrapped Fisher in the other, staring in shock at the colorful mess that had  _ once _ been the plain white wall to his hallway. 

 

“I drew you a picture!” Joey reported proudly, then, with a faltering smile asked, “You don’t like it?” 

 

Taako gaped for a few minutes longer, before eventually asking, “Do they let you draw on the walls at home, pumpkin?” 

 

Joey scuffed a toe on the floor and chewed on his cheek.  “No... but you can just magic it away, right?”

 

Angus could  _ also _ magic it away, but Taako decided not to point that out.  He set Fisher down, used prestidigitation to remove the crayon marks from his wallpaper, and rubbed away the headache forming at his temples. 

 

“Okay,” he said with a sigh.  “Okay, no. It’s naptime. Cha’boy is  _ done _ , you hear me?” 

 

Naptime, apparently, was the magic word that made Fisher lose his absolute shit.  He dropped the towel and took off through the house, screaming bloody murder and running past open windows ass naked.  Taako rubbed at his headache again, set Maggie back down in her basket, and went to chase after the toddler. Maggie started crying.  Joey chased after him, finding the whole thing absolutely hilarious. Fisher crawled and hid under the bed. 

 

Taako stopped trying to get him out after several long,  _ long _ minutes.  He snagged a blanket off the bed and collapsed on the floor, deciding that naptime could take place  _ right there, _ thank you.  Joey crawled under the blanket and wriggled under his arm, and within a matter of minutes, Taako passed out cold. 

  
  


\-------

  
  


Taako woke up around eleven a.m. to find Joaquin sitting on his chest running a toy car over his collar bones.  He groaned, rubbed his eyes, and sat up, displacing the five year old and making him laugh as he tumbled away. Fisher was no longer hiding under the bed, but Taako easily found him in the living room, still naked with his towel wrapped around his shoulders, using the crayons to scribble a picture in one of the tomes off the bookshelf. 

 

It wasn’t an important one, and it was better than the walls, so Taako let him have at it and went to see why Maggie was crying.  He changed her diaper, carried her to the living room, and had just sat on the couch when Joey popped up with a very important report. 

 

“I’m hungry,” he said. 

 

Taako had a flashback memory to himself and Lup, barely a decade old, leaning over the arm of their Aunt’s couch while she napped.  It was their first day in her home, and it had been a long journey there. She’d been exhausted. 

 

“What?” she’d asked. 

 

“We’re hungry,” Lup reported.  

 

“Well, go ahead and make something, I ain’t stopping you.” 

 

It was then that she learned they didn’t know how to cook, and it was then that their cooking lessons began. 

 

In the present day, Taako hauled himself up off the couch and went to the kitchen with him, deciding it was best to make something now than let Joey make a mess by himself.  He rubbed his eyes, looked through the cupboards, and wondered what he ought to put together. 

 

The day continued on that trend, mess after mess after minor emergency until dinner time, and then a second bath because Fisher had managed to get himself absolutely filthy again since that morning.  Bedtime was a feat all of its own, and by the time Taako had everyone tucked in and  _ staying there _ for the night, it was nearly eleven p.m. and Angus still wasn’t home yet. 

 

He dragged himself through the front door around two in the morning, prompting Taako to peel himself off the couch and shuffle off to the bedroom.  Angus shut himself in his room with a nod and a tired grin, and when Joey woke Taako up in the morning-- six in the morning, bright and early-- Angus was already gone again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bath time and bath time and... bath time. Kids truly are a miracle, aren't they?

Six a.m. came with the wake up committee, Joey chattering away and Fisher crawling onto the bed next to him with a sleepy grin and a fist rubbing at his eyes.  Joey was giving a morning report-- he saw a bird nest out the window, and he tried to pick up Maggie to show her, but she'd gotten mad and started crying.  Fisher was quiet as usual.  He never spoke much, and Taako wondered if that was a consequence of having Joey for an older brother, a normal three year old human thing, or something to actually be concerned over. 

 

 There were more pressing matters for the time being, though.  Getting out of bed and tending to the children, calming Maggie back down, and trying to look anything other than exhausted as Joey dragged him to the window to point out the bird nest.  As a pre-emptive measure, the first thing he did when he got them all to the kitchen was put the crayons in the cabinet above the sink, to keep his walls and his books safe from tiny, mischievous hands. 

 

He let Fisher sit up on the counter and gave him the job of watching Maggie's basket to keep him busy.  Maggie, freshly changed and dressed, chewed contentedly on a wooden spoon she'd been given and batted at a plush little ornament that hung from her basket handle.  Taako let Joey pour the milk in the pot for the oatmeal, and they high-fived when he did so without spilling.

 

While the kids ate, Taako used mage hand to give Maggie her bottle while he started prepping for lunch time.  Slow-bake mac 'n cheese, so he could pop it in the oven and forget it existed until non.  He took the bottle when Maggie started to fuss, picked her up and propped her against his shoulder, turned around to face the children, and instantly deflated. 

 

"How?" he asked, and they blinked up at him innocently with owl-like eyes.  "How did you do this?" 

 

They both had oatmeal all over their faces.  Joey's shirt was splattered in it.  Fisher had it on his hands and, somehow, in his hair. 

 

"Bath time," he said, "Let's go, boychiks."

 

In the bathroom, he'd caught sight of his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. 

 

"Well fuck," he said outloud, gaining a chorus of tiny laughter.  He poked at the puffiness under his eyes, frowned at the droopiness of his ears and the greasy mess of his hair, and prayed to no specific deity in particular that "fuck" wasn't Maggie's first word, or Fisher's, maybe.  He looked down at the little Angos and found Joey picking oatmeal out of Fisher's hair and eating it.  He cringed, was glad that he had such a large fucking bathtub, and announced, "Alright.  Bathtub party." 

 

Joey's response was to dance around and cheer, while Fisher started immediately stripping, and Maggie grabbed Taako's ear in two tiny fists and stuck it in her mouth.  He winced. 

 

It was far more hassle than it should have been to get the bath set up-- not too warm, human larvae had sensitive sin, and not too much bubbles, because Taako wasn't an idiot.  He got everyone down to their skivvies and insisted that, yes, Fisher, you should keep those on.  Then, in another sort of miracle, he got everyone into the tub as well, and once there himself he lifted Maggie out of the basket and lowered her carefully into the water with them. 

 

She immediately started screaming. 

 

"Okay!" Taako yelped on reflex, leaping to his feet and snagging a towel off the rack to bundle her up in, effectively splashing water everywhere.  "Okay, you're fine, shhhh, sh sh shh...." 

 

The boys were giggling at him, Fisher with tiny hands pressed over his mouth, Joey with his mouth wide open and his head thrown back, but just as quickly as the crying started-- it stopped.  He settled her, wrapped in the towel for the time being, and set the basket on the floor where he could keep an eye on her.  He sunk back into the water with a weary sigh, watched Fisher and Joey take full advantage of the whirlpool tub to bob around and gather bubbles off the top of the water to place on each other's heads.  The clock on the wall read 8:37 a.m., earlier than Taako had woken up in years before the children had arrived.  He considered sinking into the water, falling asleep, and drowning. 

 

But not really.  

 

He made quick work of unbraiding and scrubbing out his own hair, and then quickly gathered it up under a towel and trapped it on top of his head.  He started making mental plans for an hour's long bath, steamy and quiet with three different steps of conditioner, some white wine and Kravitz, maybe, if he wasn't away at work. 

 

For the time being, he got the little ones clean, bickering lightly with them when they tried fussing away from the wash rag.  Before long they were bundled in towels and the tub was draining, and Taako herded everyone out to go find new clothes.  He let them dress themselves and put on whatever they wanted, as long as it covered the basics, which meant Joey came out wearing four different colors, and Fisher's outfit consisted of merely underroos and sneakers. 

 

Washing Maggie in the kitchen sink seemed to make the most sense, so he got that set up and checked on the mac n' cheese, and then there was a tiny hand tugging on his pant leg.  

 

"Yes?" he asked, and Fisher pointed at the back door in the living room.  

 

"He wants to play outside," Joey supplied, clambering up onto the counter and peeking in the cabinets.  Taako reached around him to snag the crayons away and stash them on top of the fridge. 

 

"Can you use your words?" he asked Fisher, while he did this, and Fisher shook his head.  It was funny, really.  The real Fisher hadn't spoken either. Taako shrugged.  Ah well, that was Angus's problem later, if he ever got around to coming back home. 

 

It was eerie when Joey immediately asked him, "When is Papa coming home?" and Taako briefly wondered if human children could read minds.  He stooped down, because Joey's eyes were dangerously shiny, and let the kid lean forward and drop his head onto Taako's shoulder.  Magnus used to be like that, especially as a young man, leaning into anyone who would hold still long enough.  He decided not to think about that. 

 

"Soon, pumpkin," he said, because he wasn't sure and he had few qualms about lying to children.  "How about you go play outside and I'll give him a call?" 

 

That was enough, it seemed, to send them both out the door.  He called after Joey to keep an eye on his brother, and made sure he could see them through the window above the kitchen sink.  He and Lup had never been supervised as children, and they'd grown up fine.  Taako was unconcerned.

 

Apparently Maggie was simply opposed to water of any kind.  Bath time was lots of wailing and splashing and crying, but they got through it, and after she was squeaky clean-- or as close to it as she could get, with Taako working as fast as he possibly could with the building headache-- he got her redressed and wrapped up in a blanket, cradled her to his chest, and bounced around gently to try and get her to calm back down.  There had to be an easier way to do this bath time thing.  

 

He hummed to her quietly, something ancient and elven that he couldn't remember the source of, childhood or one of the planes or anywhere else, it was hard to be certain.  She started to quiet, and he went to check on the mac n' cheese in the oven, and an piercing scream from outside stopped both of those actions cold.  Maggie started up again, while Taako bolted out the door, because if he let  _anything_ happen to the little Angos the original Ango was going to kill him.  He sprinted across the yard-- because teleportation magic only worked with consenting second parties, and the last thing he wanted to do was  _drop_ Maggie as he went through-- and found Fisher and Joey out by the garden shed. 

 

The garden shed had been white washed when Magnus first built the thing, and was now chipping and grey with dirt, and had very recently been covered in a colorful crayon mural.  Fisher was sitting in the dirt near it, face red and tears streaming down his face, hands full of mud and one hand raised as if ready to throw.  Joey, who'd already been hurt by several mud attacks, apparently, was shouting back, holding a broken crayon and looking furious.  Taako surveyed the scene, felt three tiny, screaming voices swarm around him and stab at his headache and send him staggering.  He cringed.  He tried to think of what to do.  He lost his cool. 

 

He cast silence. 

 

Fisher and Joey didn't notice at first, still screeching at each other silently while Taako plopped down cross-legged in the dirt, a still crying (albeit, noiselessly) Maggie held in one hand while the other reached up to massage at his temples.  He wondered if this week was actually going to manage to kill him.  He wondered how Angus and Silvia had managed this.  How Angus was going to manage this. 

 

Gods damn it, Taako wasn't cut out for this childcare shit. 

 

Joey figured out the silence spell by the time Taako opened his eyes again, found him touching his own mouth and frowning.  Fisher was less concerned with the sudden change, and had gotten up and toddled off across the yard instead.  Taako sighed and got back to work, dismissing the spell and hauling himself to his feet.   He scooped Joey up under his arm like a sack of potatoes and called out, "Come on, Fish," as he headed back inside.  Fisher came toddling along after him. 

 

It was amazing that they'd manage to get absolutely filthy only half an hour after bath time, and Taako hadn't decided yet if he was supposed to wash them again or just let them be filthy little goblins in the back yard for the rest of the day.  For now, he had an argument to deal with.  He sat them both down at the kitchen table and held his hand out for the box of crayons, which he then placed not on top of the fridge, but deep in it, in the very back on the top shelf.  There was no way they'd manage to snatch it from there. 

 

Then he went and sat at the table with them, propped Maggie on his lap and his elbows on the table.  "Alright, kiddos," he said seriously, "Explain." 

 

Joey launched into an explanation about the crayons, that he'd  _tried_ to tell Fisher not to chew on them, but he wouldn't listen.  And he'd broken them in half, and now they were ruined, and he was getting very close to yelling and tearful with his explanation, but Taako waited him out.  He wondered how this could even constitute a real argument.  The last time he'd had to play this damn game, it was a couple of pre-teens babbling explanations about borrowing spell components from the laboratory without permission.  That, he could get behind.  Stolen crayons?  How did that constitute the end of the world? 

 

But Taako remembered being very, very small, remembered how he and Lup were both inseparable and ready to absolutely throw down about silly, childish things like this.  He supposed that little kids had little worlds, made little problems look bigger. 

 

Joey finished his speech with, "--and he always ruins  _everything!_ " 

 

When he and Lup would get into it at their aunt's house-- they knew better than to try that anywhere else, their grandfather would send them off to more chores with a few swats and an order to simmer down, but Aunt Julip had fostered a judicial system of letting both sides vent their feelings and settle it by hugging it out afterwards-- she'd make them drink a cup of water and wipe the snot off their faces before giving her wisdom, but Taako only had to many hands.  So he kept Maggie balance with one, and reached across the table for Joey's with the other.  

 

"Okay, listen up, 'cause I got some genuine Taako advice comin'.  I swindled whole planets into paying for this kind of advice before, so pay attention." 

 

Joey blinked blankly, not quite understanding, but he took Taako's hand anyways.  "That guy right there--" Taako said, nodding his head to Fisher, "--Is your automatic best friend.  That's how it works.  Life gives you a sibling, and you'd better learn to like them, because you're stuck with them forever.

 

"Your Auntie Lup and I used to drive each other absolutely crazy, but we have always been there for each other, and we always will be.  You have to learn to cherish the people you're given, does that make sense?" 

 

Joey didn't look too happy about this new wisdom.  "But he's  _annoying_ ," he protested. 

 

Taako said, "You're annoying, and I still like  _you_ ," and thank the gods Joey laughed instead of getting upset.  Taako leaned a little farther and tweaked his cheek.  

 

"That's more like it, boychik.  You're brothers, okay?  You have to take care of each other."  He looked at Fisher, who was rolling mud between his fingertips.  Taako sighed.  "Did you hear any of that?" he asked.

 

Fisher nodded. 

 

Taako hummed.  "Good.  Stop putting things in your mouth, dude."  He looked back at Joey.  "And no more pushing your brother over." 

 

"How did you know that!?" Joey demanded in total awe.  Taako didn't answer, instead nudging them both back out the door, the both of them still covered in mud and Fisher still wearing nothing but underpants. 

 

All in a day's work, he supposed.  He added two things to his agenda: 1. put some kind of baby carrying device together, because Maggie was getting  _heavy_ after hours and hours of hauling her around.   2. call Lup.  He could really use some back up.  Afterwards he'd go outside and nap in the grass, and he'd wake up too late to save the mac n' cheese from getting burnt into charcoal in the oven.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite thing about small children is their talent for getting so so filthy so so fast. Taako going outside to find Fisher sitting in the dirt, both of them covered in mud, and everyone screaming? That's a scene straight from the old memory well.
> 
> I haven't assigned Maggie an exact age for this-- just little, like sack of potatoes, sticks everything in her mouth and is about to learn how to blow raspberries little-- but imagine this: Taako + Maggie + BABY SLING 
> 
> Oh yes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What does that mean?” Joey asked, climbing up Lup like a tiny monkey and draping himself over her shoulder. “How do you ‘Magnus’ somebody? And what’s a mother fucker? And what does ‘Gods damn it’ mean?” 
> 
> "You guys are having quite a day, aren't you?" Lup asked, raising an amused eyebrow at Taako. He rubbed his forehead. 
> 
> "Not a word."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how do you know finals are coming up? when I post two chapters in two days. that's right, welcome to the procrastination zone!

The mac n’ cheese was burnt to a crisp, and it was only his fantastic sun elf genetics that kept him from getting fried up as well after laying out in the sun for hours.  The little Angos, who all inherited their parent’s matching dark skin and darker eyes, and who had spent the morning running from sun to shade to sun again, were fine as well.  Sleepy, but fine. 

 

“Y’know once, on the beach planet, your uncle Magnus went skinny dipping at night and fell asleep in the sand afterwards.  He woke up late the next morning as an absolute  _ lobster. _   Ch’boy couldn’t sit down for four whole days, ya shoulda  _ heard _ the whining.” 

 

“What’s skinny dipping?” Joey asked, trying and failing to pry burnt up mac n’ cheese out of the cooking pan with a fork.  He bent the fork. Taako was gonna have to throw out the whole thing, pan and all. 

 

“Ask your father,” Taako told him, and huffed forlornly at the state of his kitchen.  “How do you feel about going out for lunch?” 

 

The kids were all for it.  Taako gave Joey the job of putting on shoes and convincing Fisher to wear clothes, while he went off to put some diapers and formula in his bag of holding and figure out some kind of baby carrying method.  He settled on basket, eventually, deciding to figure out a scarf situation later, and when he went to check on the boys ten minutes later he found Joey  _ still _ fighting with his shoe laces and Fisher running around absolutely naked. 

 

Mother of fuck. 

 

It was another fifteen minutes after that to wrestle an uncooperative Fisher into some clothes and get Joey to tie his shoes with loud, bountiful protests of “I can do it, I know  _ how,  _ Uncle Taako, I  _ don’t need help! _ ” 

 

Taako cast a quick cantrip that tied the laces for them, hooked Maggie’s basket handle in the crook of his elbow, and popped his hat on his head before ushering them out the door. 

 

“Stick close,” he said, “Don’t run off.  Everybody hold onto my robe so I know where you are.” 

 

They must have painted a very silly picture walking through campus, the boys on either side of Taako, holding his robe up like the world’s tiniest bride’s maids escorting him down the aisle in a fruity, fancy wedding ceremony.  It wasn’t a far walk to the cafe on campus-- because while the cafeteria was  _ top notch  _ (this was Taako’s school, of  _ course _ it was) he wasn’t ready to take tiny, tiny children into a place that crowded and noisy-- but tiny legs made it take forever.  They got there eventually, and the older student working behind the hostess podium was very polite at concealing her amusement at the situation.  

 

Taako shot her a look that meant he totally understood the laughter bubbling in her eyes, but he appreciated her shitty pretending nonetheless. 

 

After lunch was the library.  Three days alone with the larvae had taught Taako that he had absolutely no idea what the hell he was doing, but hey, what else was new?  This, at least, was familiar. When Lup and Taako applied for the IPRE, they went in knowing magic and nothing else. They  _ taught _ themselves the math and science and whatever-the-fuck to ace the placement exams and get in, and if they could get into the two-sunned planet’s best scientific academy without ever attending primary school, then Taako could teach himself a thing or two about childcare, thank you very much. 

 

It turns out children aren’t really made for libraries.  

 

They trailed behind him as he traipsed through the aisles, tugging on his robe the whole way.  Every time Taako paused, Joey would pick up a book, as “What’s this?” and then put it back in the wrong place.  He was also humming, singing to himself quietly. Always making noise, that one was. Students studying at tables and desks nearby swivelled to watch them as they passed.  

 

“Can I hold the basket?” Joey asked, letting go of the robe and reaching up with two little grabby hands for it.  “I wanna help! You can carry the books.” 

 

Those were fair enough terms, Taako supposed.  He said, “Don’t go dropping her or whatever,” he handed it down gently.  Joey tottered along after him then, two arms holding a basket about half as big as he was, a determined look on his face.  Fisher kept tugging on his robe. 

 

A young man working in the library was more than happy to point out the books Taako needed, and Taako wasn’t sure  _ why _ this magic academy library had a section on childcare-- he’d let Ren oversee stocking the library, and was pretty sure she dictated that task to someone else anyways-- but he certainly appreciated it now. 

 

“Stick close, Angos,” he said, starting to leaf through his options. 

 

“We’re not Angos,” Joey corrected him.  “We’re Joeys and Fishes and Maggies…. Uh oh, Fisher’s gone.”

 

“What!?” Taako yelped, and sure enough when he looked down at his robe, Fisher wasn’t there anymore.  “Oh Gods damn it.”  

 

Someone nearby shushed him without looking up, and Taako wondered if they knew they were shushing the headmaster. 

 

“Gods damn it,” Joey repeated, looking pleased with himself.  Taako hung his head for a moment to breathe.  

 

“Did you see which way he went?” 

 

Joey nodded, “Uh huh.” 

 

“Can you go get him for me?” 

 

Joey nodded again very seriously, like his job was very important, and he sat Maggie back on the ground before bolting away, tiny sneakers very loud against the hard wood linoleum floor.  The student who’d shushed them earlier looked up to glare, and their eyes grew wide when they saw Taako. Their face turned red, and they quickly buried it back in their book. Taako rolled his eyes.  

 

“What do ya think?” he asked, holding a book up for Maggie to see.  Maggie looked back at him, and then blew a raspberry. Taako blinked. 

 

“Didn’t know you knew how to do that….” 

 

She made the noise again, bubbles forming on her lips as she blew more spit at him.  

 

“No good then,” he agreed, putting the book back and taking another down.  He found three that might work, thought that would be enough to keep him busy with the little ones running around everywhere, and gathered Maggie back up to go find the boys. 

 

They were cuddled up on a bean bag chair near the check out desk, a nervous academy student behind said desk eying them carefully, as if worried they were going to destroy the book or explode or throw up or something, which, knowing the children, wasn’t entirely unlikely. 

 

Fisher had a book cradled on his lap, and he was seated half on Joey’s.  Joey leaned over his shoulder to flip the pages, and it was only when Taako got a bit closer that he realized Joey was reading to him. 

 

“You can read?” he asked, and both boys turned to blink up at him.  Joey beamed, while Fisher rolled off the beanbag chair and came over to hold the book up to Taako with both hands. 

 

“I can do lots’a things!” Joey declared, and started listing them.  Taako looked the book over-- a book of “fairy tales” from the stolen century, legends of the journeys of the seven birds, rewritten to be a bit dramaticized and consumable by children.  

 

His first question was who on earth had published this, though the obvious answer was probably Lucretia.  Maybe not, but probably. His second question was, “You want this one?” to which Fisher nodded and flapped his hands around a bit, in a way that looked very intentional and communicative. 

 

Taako would… have to look into that. 

 

He used mage hand to carry the books to the desk in front of him, holding Maggie’s basket in one actual hand and taking Fisher’s hand in the other, no longer certain they could get home without him wandering away.  

 

Being headmaster and all, he didn’t worry about checking out at the front desk before leaving.  He lived  _ on campus _ .  It was  _ his school. _   He could keep the books as long as he wanted, and if they needed them back, well they knew where to find him. 

 

“Did you call Papa?” Joey asked, letting go of the robe to run up next to Taako.  He had, earlier. Hadn’t gotten an answer. 

 

“Yup,” he lied.  “He’s working really hard, but he promised to come home soon.” 

 

“Good!” Joey burst out, very adamant about it.  “Can I carry Maggie?” 

 

Taako handed her over, and picked Fisher up when he waved his hands at him, propping the kid on his hip and carrying him the rest of the way to the cottage.  

 

Something was wrong when they got there.  The house was occupied, front door ajar and air a touch too still to be comfortable.  His blood turned cold. He stopped them all on the front path.

 

“Stay here,” he said, setting Fisher down and pulling his wand out of his braid as he crept through the front door, reassuring himself that it was just a student who’d come to visit, or Ren, or a meeting that had failed to be cancelled.  The front of the house was empty, though, the dining room and meeting space and his office. He set the books down in the hallway, heard the sound of tiny feet behind him meaning the kids  _ hadn’t _ waited outside.  Taako would really have to have a word with Angus about teaching his children to  _ listen _ , but that wasn’t a thing to think about right now.  

 

He heard a sound in the kitchen and swallowed his nerves as he crept closer.  He poked his head through the doorway, found the room silent and still, but felt a presence.  He narrowed his eyes, took a step further in. 

 

Someone burst out of the pantry. 

 

Taako screamed reflexively and fired off a magic missile, while someone leapt from the pantry in a flurry of robes and golden hair, shouting  _ “Magnus!” _ at the top of their lungs.  It hit her square in the chest, launching her back into the pantry.  There was quite a clamber as cans and jars fell from the shelves around them and a sack of flour burst open.  Lup, laying in the center of the mess, burst out laughing. 

 

“You mother fucker!” Taako shouted at her, sending a mage hand down the hall to shut the front door.  “You mother  _ fucker _ , I could have killed you!” 

 

Lup emerged, doubled over in laughter and supporting herself against the door jamb, covered head to toe in flour.  She wheezed, burst out laughing again, and managed to say, “You could  _ try _ !” then,  “Ah shit, little Angos!” 

 

“Aunt Lup!” Joey shouted, setting Maggie down and launching himself at her.  Lup caught him and spun him around, effectively covering the both of them  _ and _ Taako’s  _ kitchen _ entirely in flour.  Fisher laughed and ran over, holding his arms up to her and getting scooped up and covered in flour as well.  

 

“We went to the library,” Joey reported, then sneezed, then rubbed at his nose and smeared flour around.  Taako cleaned back against the counter and caught his breath, still a bit shaky, still glaring at his sister.  Maggie blew a raspberry. 

 

Lup kissed him on the cheek and set him back down.  “Nerds,” she teased. “How’s the fish doing?” she asked Fisher, and got a few little hand motions in answer.  She raised an eyebrow at Taako, who sighed and shrugged. 

 

“Can’t believe you magic missiled me, babe,” she teased, coming over to kiss Taako on the side of the head and sock him in the shoulder.  He batted her away and wiped flour out of his hair.  

 

“Can’t believe you destroyed my kitchen.” 

 

“Can’t believe I managed to  _ Magnus _ you, you shoulda seen your face!” 

 

“What does that mean?” Joey asked, climbing up onto the counter, swaying a bit, and catching himself by grabbing onto Lup’s shoulder.  He climbed onto her back like a tiny monkey, and she grinned at him out of the corner of her eye as he draped himself over her shoulder.  “How do you ‘Magnus’ somebody-- Uncle Magnus was a  _ person. _   And what’s a mother fucker?  And what does ‘Gods damn it’ mean?” 

 

“You guys are having quite a day, aren’t you?” Lup asked, raising another amused eyebrow at Taako.  He rubbed at his forehead. 

 

“Not a word,” he said to her.  She looked around the kitchen and eye-balled the blackened mac n’ cheese sitting on the stove, bent up fork still sticking out of it.  Her amusement grew. “Not a gods damned word.” 

 

“Clean me up before I track flour all over your house,” she ordered.  “You look exhausted, it is  _ time to chill _ .” 

 

Taako rolled his eyes and cast prestidigitation, on her and the boys and the rest of his kitchen.  He’d clean up the pantry later. 

 

“It’s been a long day,” he told her, eyeing the garden shed out the kitchen window.  She peered at it and pursed her lips.  

 

Joey said, “Time to chill, like ice cubes!” and started miming shivering.  Lup carried them off to the living room, Taako and Maggie trailing behind them, and he pulled both couches together to make a cote like structure, which she then dropped the boys onto.  

 

“Come on,” she ordered, sprawling out.  Taako climbed onto it after her and sat Maggie up on his chest.  He yawned, somehow still exhausted.  

 

He levitated a book over to them and dropped it on Joey’s lap. “Show Auntie Lup how good you are at reading, boychik,” he said, and Joey beamed and did so.  

 

A few pages in, Lup frowned at Taako and whispered, “Is this about  _ us _ ?” Taako rolled his eyes good naturedly. 

 

“Lucy’s been at it again,” he responded. 

 

A story and a half in, Joey decided he was bored, which he announced before handing the book over and climbing out of their cote to go play somewhere else.  Fisher had already wandered off, and somehow they failed to notice. 

 

Ah well. 

 

“What’s with his hands?” Lup asked, sitting up and laying Maggie on her lap, taking her tiny hands and waving them around idly.  “Some kinda hands language?” 

 

“Hell if I know,” Taako responded, pulling another book from the library over and cracking it open.   _ ‘Babysitting for Dummies _ ’ was spelled out on the leatherbound cover in golden, curly letters.  He thumbed through it, found the human chapter. “He doesn’t talk, anyways.  Think that’s normal?” 

 

“You haven’t asked Angus yet?” 

Taako waved a hand around, and said, “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but boychik isn’t  _ here _ .” 

 

“How’s he doing, anyways?” Lup asked, and Taako tried not to be bitter about it. 

 

“Just told you,  _ I don’t know _ .  He’s not exactly easy to keep an eye on.” Lup was silent, and Taako glanced over at her after a short while, she had that  _ look _ on her face.  He huffed. “Sorry.” 

 

“I’m worried about him.” 

 

“Uh huh.” 

 

“ _ Kravitz _ is worried about him.” 

 

Taako laughed at that.  “Kravitz is  _ pissed _ at him, kid comes in here talking about raising his wife from the dead, as if he wasn’t raised by the anti-necromancy mascot.” 

 

Lup smiled at that.  “We got Barry keeping an eye on him, just an idle thing, really.  It’ll ping if he even  _ thinks _ about doing anything fishy.  He’s a bit too old for the scared straight program, y’know?” 

 

“When the Goddess of Death is your grandmother, it’s a little hard to be scared by reapers,” Taako agreed.  He flipped the page. “He’s getting old, y’know.” 

 

“Don’t talk like that.” 

 

“Thirty more years and he’ll be Magnus aged.” 

 

Lup snatched the book out of his hands and set it aside, threw her arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a non-compliant cuddle.  He grouched into her shoulder. 

 

“You know how it is with humans,” she said gently.  “We figured out when we reached Faerun that we were gonna outlive them, you know that.” 

 

“He’s supposed to be a  _ kid _ .” 

 

“Well he’s acting like one, if that makes you feel better.”  She let go of Taako to pick Maggie up under the arms, hold her up Lion King style in front of Taako’s face.  “See this little thing? See this tiny little creature? Just a few months old, we’ve got to cherish  _ that _ .”  

 

“In thirty more years she’ll be an  _ adult _ ,” Taako lamented. “We’d still be learning to  _ write _ at that age, Lulu.” 

 

Lup sighed heavily and sat Maggie on his lap. “You’re being ridiculous,” she complained.  “When was the last time you got any real sleep, huh?” 

 

Taako sagged back against her shoulder, cradled Maggie against his chest, and let her stick his necklace in her mouth.  The pendant could be used for magic transfers sizeable enough to move mountains. To level castles. To bring storming seas to glass-like stillness.  It was a sorcerer’s pendant he’d swindled off a merchant sometime before their fiftieth cycle, not as powerful as the sorcerer’s stone and a bit chipped and defective, but it was pretty to look at and couldn’t be activated by baby drool.  He wasn’t worried about it. 

 

“The wake up committee comes at six a.m.,” he complained.  “And I stayed up waiting for Angus. Gonna actually sit him down tonight, he’s wearing himself to the fuckin’ bone, you should see him.” 

 

“He’ll be fine,” Lup told him, bumping her skull against his.  He did his best to keep his ears from drooping any further.  

 

From another room, a tiny voice shouted, “Gods damn it!” accompanied by the sound of a dull crash.  Taako sighed. Lup laughed, happy and boisterous.  

 

“I got it,” she said, climbing off the couches and going to investigate.  Taako slouched a little further and sat Maggie up again.  

 

“What am I gonna do with them?” he asked her solemnly, “All the boys in your family are  _ crazy _ .” 

 

She blew a raspberry.   He wiped the spit off his forehead.  

  
  


\--------

  
  


Taako whipped dinner together while Lup ran the kids around in the backyard, trying to wear them out again before bedtime. Earlier in the afternoon, the two of them had dug a scarf out of the depths of his closet and threw together an invention of sorts, a bindle sort of situation that let Taako hold the baby against his chest without using his arms.  She was pretty pleased with it, and the boys had a grand old time dressing themselves up in Taako’s clothes and running around, “playing wizards.” 

 

He had Maggie fastened to him as he put dinner together, and she hummed contentedly in a baby sort of way while Taako sang to her, dancing around the kitchen.  A mage hand was chopping, the stove was bubbling, and the kids were screeching gleefully in the backyard.

 

The crash earlier had been-- big surprise, the  _ crayons _ , and Lup had caught Fisher in the act of using a shaky for kind mage hand to lift the crayons out of the back of the fridge.  “He knows how to do  _ magic!? _ ” she’d asked, and Taako had just shrugged.  He wasn’t really surprised by anything anymore, though there was a waxy stain in the middle of his light stone kitchen floor where the crayons had crashed into it. 

 

Dinner was potatoes and honey glazed carrots and meat prepared sweet enough that the kids wouldn’t protest.  He couldn’t feed them oatmeal again, he morally  _ couldn’t _ , no matter how many honeys or berries or cinnamons he mixed into it.

 

Bathtime wasn’t any less of an event with four pairs of hands instead of two.  Maggie blew contentedly raspberries from her basket seat on the bathroom counter, while Lup and Taako got just as soaked as the children did from  _ outside _ the tub.  While Lup tucked them into bed and read them a story and got them situated, Taako cleaned up the mess in the bathroom and the kitchen and the pantry.  

 

He left the cote alone, collapsing onto it bonelessly, and was joined a short while later by Lup collapsing directly on top of him.  He groaned. She ignored him. “That was hard work,” she complained, and he groaned again. 

 

“Welcome to my life,” he said.  “Use your reaper super powers and stay up to wake me when Angus gets here.” 

 

“Not a  _ chance _ , goofus.  I ain’t watching you sleep.” 

 

“Creep.” 

 

“Loser.” 

 

“Bite me.” 

 

She did, and Taako yelped and shoved at her, and the two wrestled with whatever energy they had left until they jostled the couches enough to separate them from each other and fell through the hole that was formed in the middle.  Taako smacked his head on the floor, and Lup headbutted him when she landed on his chest. They both groaned, and collapsed, and Lup rolled off of him to shove the couch out of the way and lay next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder. 

 

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she decided, after a while.  “We’re gonna silence the room, we’re gonna put on some music and dig out your wine, and we’re going to be  _ fancy _ .   Then when Angus gets here you’ll be all chilled out to sit him down and give him a piece of your mind.” 

 

“I’m not going to yell at him,” Taako said, “He’s a grown ass man.” 

 

Lup scoffed. 

 

She had a point. 

 

He hauled himself upright, using the very last dredges of his energy.  “Get the wine,” he said, “I’m gonna make a list of questions to ask the boychik, see if he knows any baby secrets I haven’t figured out yet.” 

 

“Ask about the hand language,” Lup said, “And the reading.  Should five year olds be able to read?” 

 

“Should they be able to do  _ magic _ ?” 

 

“Good point.  Write that down.” 

 

He grabbed a pen and paper from his office, and gathered together his childcare books.  He started his list, and Lup ran off to grab the wine, and they spent the evening like students again, flipping through books and drinking and flicking ink at each other when they got too bored.  With company, it was easy to sit up until Angus got home in the wee hours of the morning. As the front door creaked open-- Taako would have to figure out how to fix that.  _ Magnus _ had always been the one to call for those things and, well, Taako didn’t really have any clue what to do about it-- Lup spirited away to the bedroom to turn in for the night, leaving Taako alone for the hard conversation. 

 

Gods damn it. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Down the hall, Maggie started to cry. Taako bit back the tears forming a lump in the back of his throat and spun on heel to go deal with it. Joey sobbed into his shoulder. Taako counted the seconds till Kravitz got home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy radio silence, batman! Life got loud for a while, thanks for waiting patiently. 
> 
> Warning this chapter for mention of panic attacks, a bit of arguing, and Kravitz being the most amazing husband.

Taako got to his feet when he heard the front door opening and peered down the hallway to see it jerk open, Angus stumbling in as if he’d been leaning his full weight on it and not expecting it to open, feet taking too long to catch him as if the soles of his shoes were concrete.  He stumbled through the door around two in the morning, squinted around like he was wondering why the lights were still on, and when he caught sight of Taako down the hall, something in his expression sunk.  

 

Not letting that dishearten him, Taako stepped fully into the hallway and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and schooling his facial expression into something neutral.  He couldn’t look exhausted when Angus looked ready to drop dead, and he couldn’t look pissed if he wanted this conversation to be successful. Angus sighed and shut the door behind him. Taako sent a mage hand to click the deadbolt when Angus failed to remember, watched his boychik shuffle down the hall. 

 

“Hey,” Angus greeted, voice lacking it’s usual bounce and shine.  He asked, “What are you still doing up?” and “Kids asleep?” 

 

“Obviously,” was Taako’s answer.  “What am I, an amateur?” 

 

Angus graciously didn’t point out that he  _ was _ , actually.  He shuffled off down the hall and didn’t seem to notice when Taako followed him.  In fact, he didn’t address it until Taako followed him all the way into his bedroom and shut the door behind him. 

 

Angus yawned, dropped his bag at the desk and stretched his arms high over his head.  He was tall enough that his fingertips brushed the ceiling, just like Magnus. Thinner though.  Detective work kept him busy and light on his feet most of the day, but it didn’t call for much heavy lifting.  Angus filled out his frame with enough muscle to serve his purposes and not much else, unlike Magnus who’d been a full-blooded two-sunned beef cake since puberty, or so they’d been told. Angus had no interest in bench pressing his friends and family in the name of fun, but if he  _ did, _ he’d probably be Magnus shaped. 

 

Taako made himself stop thinking about it. 

 

“How’s the investigation going?” Taako asked, and Angus jumped, like he hadn’t realized Taako was still there.  Taako bit back a remark about environmental awareness, knowing his ‘shitty detective’ joke wouldn’t be terribly funny or well-received by the current audience. 

 

“I… fine.  It’s fine.” 

 

“Find the killer yet?” he asked, and Angus levelled him with a glare-- or, he  _ tried _ to.  It came off as more of a blank stare, fatigue wearing at his expressions and slackening his eyebrows. 

 

“Find the ghost yet?” Taako asked instead, and Angus turned away from him. 

 

He slipped off his jacket and tugged at his tie, toeing his shoes off and starting to unbutton his shirt.  “What do you  _ want, _ Taako?” 

 

In different circumstances, Taako would have scoffed.  Actually, you know what? Fuck it. Taako  _ did _ scoff.  He said, “Can’t an elf check up on their favorite magic boy without an interview attached?” 

 

“Not a boy.” 

 

His mouth pulled into a smirk.  “Yes, my apologies. Favorite magic  _ girl _ ,” Taako corrected, and this time Angus managed to glare at him.  He traded slacks for pajama pants and draped all of his clothes over the back of his chair, like he intended to wear them another day, despite the fact that they looked in desperate need of a wash.  

 

“How are the kids?” Angus asked, and Taako allowed the less than elegant conversation switch.

 

He shrugged, nodded, plopped down on the bed to watch Angus finish his short-cutted evening routine.  Rubbing his face instead of washing it. Groaning with creaking bones as he bent to remove his socks. He looked… he looked so  _ old _ .  It was similar to seeing Lucretia, after the day of story and song, when his memories started to slot themselves into a new and improved timeline, when he remembered her at twenty and was suddenly faced with her at fifty.  Angus was just a  _ child _ , he shouldn’t look this  _ old _ . 

 

“Fisher doesn’t talk.  Is that normal?” 

 

Angus flapped a hand lazily and responded, “He signs a bit.” 

 

Taako wished he hadn’t forgotten his list of questions in the living room.  The old thinker wasn’t as sharp as it used to be, and most of the questions had gotten lost to the fog.  He chased after them uselessly. 

 

“Did you know Joey can read?  And the fish man can cast mage hand?” 

 

“Successfully?” Angus asked, and he sounded surprised. 

 

“Almost.”

 

He nodded now, as if that’s what he’d been expecting. 

 

Taako fell asleep that night with few questions asked and fewer answers received.  Angus begged off any further questioning, complaining lightly about the nagging. Taako told him Lup was down the hall, suggested that he ought to stick around for breakfast in the morning.  Angus said that if Taako didn’t intend to leave his bedroom-- Which he didn’t. “ _ My house, my bedroom, kemosabe.” _ \-- then he’d have to deal with Angus sleeping.  He crawled over Taako into the bed, tucked himself in, and was out in minutes. 

 

Taako didn’t remember falling asleep. 

 

He woke the next morning to ice cold hands against the back of his neck.  He grunted, rolled away from it, and sleepily found himself far too close to the edge of the bed. 

 

He and Kravitz slept in a [Fantasy] California King-- there  _ was no _ finding the edge of the bed on that thing.  That was the first bit of suspicion. The second bit of suspicion was that Taako felt well-rested, which he hadn’t felt in  _ ages _ (days… whatever). 

 

The last bit of suspicion was the brightness of the room beneath his eyelids.  The kids woke him up with the sun, the sky typically painted with lazy peach tones outside his window in the early morning hours.  Taako squinted one eye open, saw a bright room and a vivid blue through the cracks in the curtains, and immediately jerked away. 

 

With a gasp and a hammering heart, he bolted upright in bed and glanced around, groping for a pocket watch on the nightstand to check the time.  He found unfamiliar furniture-- not his night stand,  _ not _ Kravitz’s pocket watch (the one he’d been gifted to help him keep track of time in the astral plane, the one they’d quickly figured out went absolutely batshit the moment he crossed through a rift, the one he left on that night stand every single morning)-- and then he heard sniffling next to him. 

 

Taako blinked the sleep from his eyes and turned to face it, found a small body clambering up into his lap and latching onto the front of his shirt, burying his face in it and getting snot  _ everywhere _ .  Taako had slept in his clothes.

 

“Hey,” he said, voice cracking with misuse.  He cleared his throat. “What’s up with you? What’s all that for?” 

 

Joey mumbled something into Taako’s shirt, and when Taako ran his fingers through his hair and repeated the question, he looked up to answer.  There were tears welling in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. He was the spitting image of baby Angus-- that kid had  _ always  _ been crying, he was so damn sensitive.  

 

“Papa left without saying goodbye,” Joey whimpered, and the events of the night slowly caught back up to him.  Angus had said they could finish their conversation in the morning, but it looked like Angus had gotten out of it.  Of course he did. Angus could get away with anything. 

 

Taako also remembered Lup waking him up in the  _ very early _ hours of the morning, long before sunrise and only shortly after Angus had come home, to pinch his nose and tell him she had to be away on reaper business. 

 

They never left notes for that sort of thing anymore. 

 

No breakfast then either, he figured. 

 

Angus had still been dead asleep when Lup had left, but he’d somehow managed to escape himself without rousing Taako.  That was wicked impressive. His century before the IPRE had taught him to be vigilant whether conscious or not. He had to wonder if the security of the Starblaster had made him soft. 

 

He had to remind himself that maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. 

 

What was a bad thing, though, was crying five year olds.  Taako scrubbed at his eyes and pushed his hair out of his face.  He shoved against the mattress until he managed to sit up properly, gathering Joey into his arms when he was settled. 

 

“How do you know?” he asked. “Maybe you were asleep.” 

 

Joey screwed his little face up and dropped a tiny fist against Taako’s chest with alarming strength. “No,” he insisted.  “No, I was awake, and I was gonna make him breakfast and he said he didn’t have time and he had to go, and I asked if he was gonna find Mama and he didn’t  _ answer _ he  _ just left _ .” 

 

Taako was gonna kick that kid’s ass.  Magic missile him right out the front door the next time he came home.  He rubbed at his forehead, and rubbed gently at Joey’s back, and tried for a distraction, “How about we make breakfast now instead, pumpkin?” 

 

“I wanted to make breakfast with  _ Papa _ ,” Joey insisted. 

 

Taako felt himself quickly losing this argument. “Papa’s busy, pumpkin, maybe he’ll join for dinner.” 

 

Joey pounded his fist again, harder, and Taako’s breath left him in a quiet  _ oof _ .  “No he won’t!” he demanded.  “He’s too busy and he doesn’t want to and he has to  _ find Mama, _ he  _ said so. _ ” 

 

“He told you that?” Taako asked, halfway to picking up his stone of farspeech and calling up Kravitz, not to report anything, just to speak to someone who’d be as righteously furious as Taako was quickly becoming. 

Luckily, Joey shook his head, and Taako’s anger began to fade.  “Mama went missing, and now Papa’s busy, and his job is to find people so he has to  _ find her _ .” 

 

Two hundred years on Earth and absolutely no preparation for this conversation.  He and Lup had been young when their aunt died, but not as young as Joey. They’d been old enough to understand where she went, and that she was gone, and that they had to move on.  They’d been old enough to manage, wains or not. Joey wasn’t even old enough to tie his shoe laces. 

 

“Do you know what happened to your mama, pumpkin?” he asked hesitantly, choosing to be a grown up and not go hide in the bathroom.  

 

That was the wrong question to ask, it seemed, as Joey’s quiet tears turning into wailing sobs.  Taako very suddenly felt like he was standing on the deck of the Starblaster, watching a plane get devoured beneath him.  The dread and panic were the same. 

 

“Shit,” he said, crawling out of bed and taking the kid with him.  Joey clung like a koala. “Okay,” he muttered. “Okay, shit, fuck. Alright.” 

 

His stone of farspeech was in the master bedroom, untouched for days and free of missed messages.  He let Joey cling, kept him up with one shaky arm while his other hand batted at the stone until it dialed the right frequency. 

 

_ “Taako, what are you--”  _

 

Taako cut Angus off at the gambit.  “You need to come home right the fuck now, boychik,” he said, and was met with stalled silence. 

 

_ “I… what?  What’s going on?”  _ Angus’s voice was concerned yet flat, free from affect and just as tired as it had been the night before.  Exhausted or otherwise, Taako was feeling less merciful than he had been six hours ago. 

 

“Joey needs his dad,” Taako said.  “He woke me up  _ crying _ because he  _ misses his dad _ , and I’m not about to explain to your  _ five year old _ where his  _ mother went _ ,” Taako’s voice dripped with venom, maybe more so than was necessary, but he was exhausted, and he was pissed, and he was  _ not _ handling this one.  He was not. He refused.

 

“ _ We already talked about his mom,”  _ Angus said, sounding absolutely defeated.  “ _ He already knows.” _

 

From the strength at which Joey was crying, Taako had absolutely no doubt in his mind that Angus had explained it, and that Joey had at least part of an understanding about it.  He said, “You need to come home.” 

 

Angus’s sigh through the line was tangible.  He said, “ _ I’m so close…. Taako, I’m so close to solving this, I might be able to-- _ ” 

 

“If you say ‘bring her back,’ Barry will be on your ass before you can even finish that sentence.” 

 

Silence stretched on for a long, long moment. 

 

“Your brat is crying,” Taako said, forcing the silence to break and kissing the side of Joey’s head in an apology.  “Get your nerdy ass back here, I’m serious, Angus.” 

 

Real names meant serious business, everyone knew that.  Angus knew that for sure, knew that if returning to campus was  _ optional _ it would have been Agnes, or pumpkin, or anything else.  ‘Angus’ was serious. ‘Angus’ meant business. 

 

Angus’s voice was all business as he replied. “ _ I’m not coming home until I solve this.  I’m… I’m so close, you don’t even  _ know. _ ”  _

 

Taako took a deep breath through his nose.  Joey hiccuped into his shoulder and clutched tighter.  “ _ I want mama….” _ he whimpered.  Taako swallowed his feelings about  _ that _ . 

 

“I’m saying this from the bottom of my heart,” he said, matching Angus’s tone.  “I don’t give a single shit.” 

 

“ _ What if it was Kravitz?” _ Angus snapped, voice turning sharp all of a sudden.  Taako’s eyes widened. “ _ I lost my  _ wife, _ Taako, you can’t possibly understand what I’m going through.  You have  _ no idea _ what this feels like. You  _ said _ you could watch the kids.  You  _ said _ you could handle--” _

 

Taako hung up.  His stomach tossed.  He felt nauseous. He sat on the edge of the bed to catch his breath and settled a shaky hand in the middle of Joey’s back.  Joey let out another little sob into his shoulder, and Taako hugged him a little tighter. 

 

He tried not to think about it, tried his hardest not to remember every time he’d watched his closest friends die in front of him.  Tried not to think about the heartache that overtook him when the final battle with the hunger was over. Tried not to think about Magnus.  Tried not to panic. 

 

Whoo boy, it had been a while since he’d gotten hit this hard with it.  Decades, maybe, except for right after Magnus’s funeral. Lucretia’s fun little prank had done a number on all of them, left Taako choking on debilitating panic attacks from time to time, the kind that caused Kravitz to find him sitting on the shower floor, hours past hyperventilating, shivering and  _ not _ just because the water had run itself cold. 

 

But losing his shit wasn’t an option.  He picked his stone back up and dialed a different frequency with trembling fingers. 

 

_ “Hello love, what time is-- _ ” 

 

Taako cut him off, another wave of nausea rolling through him.  “I need you to come home,” he said. There was the briefest beat of silence. 

 

“ _ Give me just one moment,”  _ Kravitz responded.  Taako dropped the stone, picked Joey back up, and went to check on the other children.  Maggie would need to be changed and fed and redressed, probably bathed. Gods only knew what Fisher was getting up to.  Joey was still crying, wheezing in breaths between heartbroken sobs and mumbling every so often about wanting his mother. 

 

Taako didn’t say anything, just rubbed his back and held onto him, no matter how tired his arms were getting.  He was sure any reassurance he offered would be met with protest, and Taako didn’t think he could handle that right then.  

 

He found Fisher in the kitchen, a good portion of the stone floor already decorated in sloppy, childish crayon drawings.  He looked up when Taako walked in, blinked owlishly up at him, then scrambled to his feet and ran.  

 

Down the hall, Maggie started to cry.  

 

Taako bit back the tears forming a lump in the back of his throat and spun on heel to go deal with it.  Joey sobbed into his shoulder. Taako counted the seconds till Kravitz got home.

  
  


\------

 

“I’m going to kill him,” Taako said, and Maggie immediately spat up on his shoulder.  Grateful for the hand towel he’d placed there-- he was getting pretty damn good at this “kids” thing, if he did say so himself-- he flipped the larvae around to to sit up on his lap and leaned over to steal a sip from the drink Kravitz was holding. 

 

“And leave these beautiful children orphaned?” Kravitz asked, taking the towel, balling it up, and tossing it towards the back door.  It fluttered open as it flew through the air, landing soiled side down on the steps with an unfortunate ‘ _ splat! _ ’  Kravitz wrinkled his nose at it.  Maggie blew a raspberry, took one of Taako’s hands in both of her own, and gnawed at his thumb with her gums.  He sighed. 

 

“No, perhaps not,” Taako corrected.  They were sitting in their backyard in lawn chairs, feet propped up on a tree that had fallen in a recent storm that neither of them had gotten around to tidying yet.  If Magnus were still alive, he would have come over and taken it away for firewood. They might have both been waiting for him to do so. The least they could do was turn it into firewood for themselves, but the children had been using it as a jungle gym the day before, and currently it was a footrest, so maybe they’d leave it as is for a while. 

 

Taako refocused himself on their topic of conversation: Angus.  “Is he too old to spank?” he asked, causing Kravitz to spit his drink back into the glass.  

 

He sputtered, laughed, and said, “Yes,  _ quite _ .  I’d say about thirty years too old, actually.” 

 

Taako hummed, unconvinced. 

 

“Plus neither of us believe in corporal punishment.” 

 

“We both engage in physical combat on the regular,” Taako pointed out, making his mind up about the gross-factor and taking another sip of Kravitz’s drink anyways.  They were married. Kravitz’s spit was his spit. 

 

“Not with children.” 

 

“He’s not a child.” 

 

“He’s also quite a bit larger than you are, now.” 

 

Taako cracked his knuckles, then grimaced.  “I could take him.” 

 

“I forbid it.” 

 

Maggie blew a raspberry.  Taako slumped further in his chair, watched a morphus blue spectre wriggle from Fisher’s hands, levitate for the briefest moment, and drop into the dirt.  Fisher frowned. Joey squealed and stomped it out, then poured out his praises and encouragements to his little brother. Taako felt vaguely nostalgic. He choked it down. 

 

“You see that?” he asked, pointing it out.  Kravitz nodded. 

 

“Figures they’d breed geniuses.” 

 

Taako nodded, held Maggie a bit away from him, and asked, “What’s your savant talent going to be, huh?” 

 

She blew a raspberry, spit speckling Taako’s nose and forehead.  Kravitz chuckled, took the baby, and wiped the moisture off Taako’s face with a cool yet dry palm.  Taako nipped at him, and Kravitz chuckled again. 

 

He stood, propped Maggie up against his shoulder, and called, “Lunch time, boys!” into the backyard. 

 

The toddlers came running, Fisher sans shirt though he’d been wearing one just a moment before.  Joey had grass in his hair. 

 

“I didn’t make anything,” Taako realized suddenly.  They’d had a busy morning, between calming Joey down and cleaning the crayon art off the kitchen floor, washing Maggie and getting everyone ready for the day, while Taako did his best to hold himself together and not tremble apart. 

 

Kravitz picked a blade of grass from Joey’s hair as the child darted inside.  They followed the kids in. “I’ll take them to the cafe,” he said, “Give you an hour to relax.” 

 

There had to be some kind of ordinance limiting the number of times Kravitz could lift Taako’s spirits in one day.  He grinned, and he must have looked terribly relieved since Kravitz started to laugh at him again. “Take a nap, I got this.” He pressed a kiss to Taako’s head and pushed him gently towards the bedroom.  

 

“Take some diapers.  Don’t let Fisher take his shoes off at the table, he’ll probably try to.” 

 

“Got it.” 

 

“I love you.” 

 

Kravitz stopped mid step to smile at him, as if that statement itself was some monumental deal despite them having been married for almost as long as they’d known Angus at this point.  The smile was sweet, though.  

 

“I love you too,” Kravitz said, and Taako pressed his palms to his cheeks and blew a raspberry at him before slipping into the bedroom and shutting the door.  A nap. Yes. That was an excellent idea. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is gonna have some more Taako and Angos shenanigans, maybe some hard conversations, maybe some bonding moments. I have a very loose idea of how this is going to wrap up, so I'll be just as surprised as you are when I figure it out.


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